Our entrepreneurs had a rigorous summer and Im very proud of all startups from the 2014 class, said MassChallenge Founder and President Akhil Nigam. These top 26 startups are poised to make a tremendous impact across a variety of industries from healthcare to education to clean technology. While the final judges will have a difficult task ahead of them, we can all agree that each of these startups has great potential.

Judges will select 10-20 startups from the top 26 who will win grants of either $50,000 or $100,000, totaling $1 million. MassChallenge partners will also award an additional $775,000 via five sidecar prizes sponsored by CASIS and Boeing, the John W. Henry Family Foundation, Microsoft, MassIT and Perkins School for the Blind.

The 2014 final judges include industry leaders and visionaries Josh Boger (Vertex Pharmaceuticals Founder), Desh Deshpande (Deshpande Foundation Founder), Amy Schulman (former Business Unit Lead of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare) and others.

In addition the $1.75+ million of awards, the 2014 Awards Ceremony will include pitches from the 26 startups below and a showcase of all 128 MassChallenge finalists. Featured speakers at the ceremony will include Uber Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Ice Bucket Challenge creator Nancy Frates, and Innovation Hub Host Kara Miller.

MASSCHALLENGE 2014 TOP 26 STARTUPS

• 3Derm – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: CT

  • 3Derm takes 3D pictures of skin with an inexpensive handheld imager to help detect skin cancer at the earlier more treatable stages.

• Anfiro – Energy / Clean Tech – USA: MA

  • Clean and affordable water for a better tomorrow.

• ArtLifting – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • Empower homeless and disabled individuals through the celebration and sale of their artwork! ArtLifting is uplifting art.

• Ashton Instruments – High Tech – USA: MA

  • Ashton Instruments: We’re making the first affordable cycling power meter. Think of it as a super Fitbit for cyclists.

• AutoAgronom – Energy / Clean Tech – Israel

  • AutoAgronom increases agriculture yields while providing savings of up to 50% water and 70% fertilizers by “listening” to growth roots.

• Cam Med LLC – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: MA

  • Evopump – the first soft, flexible, bandage-like patch pump for active and simultaneous subcutaneous delivery of one or more medications.

• CareerVillage.org – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • CareerVillage crowd-sources career advice for students in low-income communities. Now *every* student can get the personal advice they need.

• Catie’s Closet – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • Catie’s Closet improves school attendance and removes social stigmas by providing clothing and necessities to students living in poverty.

• Dimples, Inc. – High Tech – USA: PA

  • With Dimples, it’s like printing money. Dimples reduces ink costs when printing documents.

• Disease Diagnostic Group – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: OH

  • Disease Diagnostic Groups reusable, mechanical device offers a handheld, quantitative malaria diagnosis.

• Drinkwell – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • Drinkwell transforms the global arsenic and fluoride water crisis into economic opportunity.

• DropWise – Energy / Clean Tech – USA: MA

  • DropWise: on a mission to avert metagons of CO2 with a nanoengineered coating for power plants.

• EdTrips – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • EdTrips helps field trip venues manage their visitors and reach more teachers.

• Fluid-Screen – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: CT

  • Fluid-Screen makes the world a safer place by enabling faster, more sensitive microbial detection from fluid samples.

• Gecko Health Innovations – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: MA

  • GeckoCap is a connected mobile device that improves management of chronic respiratory diseases for better outcomes and costs.

• Grapevine – High Tech – USA: MA

  • Grapevine’s advocate marketing platform helps consumer facing brands generate sales by working with relevant YouTubers.

• Jisto Inc. – High Tech – USA: MA

  • Transforming idle computation cycles in organizations into a powerful cloud computing platform capable of taking on massive computations.

• KnipBio – General – USA: MA

  • KnipBio: Our proprietary biotechnology makes animal feed more nutritious & sustainable.

• Oncolinx – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: NJ

  • Oncolinx is developing next-generation cancer therapeutics that safely and effectively treat the most aggressive types of cancer.

• ReFleece – Social Impact – USA: MA

  • ReFleece is a scalable model for upcycling: we make beautiful, modern accessories from clothes that would otherwise go to waste.

• Sano LLC – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: MA

  • Sano offers a disposable, low cost, Point-of-Care (POC) diagnostic platform with first focus on chronic wounds.

• SQZ Biotech – Healthcare / Life Sciences – USA: MA

  • SQZ Biotech’s CellSqueeze (invented at MIT) enables delivery of molecules into cells by a gentle squeezing. That’s right, we squeeze cells.

• Unima – Healthcare / Life Sciences – Mexico

  • Today diagnostic of diseases is a long and expensive process. Unima developed a low cost and 5 minute process usable by anyone, anywhere.

• Ustraap – High Tech – Mexico

  • The smart and simple way to sense your surroundings with style.

• VOXEL8 – High Tech – USA: MA

  • Voxel8 is a startup company focused on multimaterial 3D printing of electronics that has recently spun out of Jennifer Lewis’s lab at Harvard University.

• ZOOS Greek Iced Teas – General – USA: MA

  • ZOOS is a first-to-market, all natural, real brewed, caffeine free, ready-to-drink Greek Iced Tea that is Yia-Yia approved!

This June, 128 startups entered the fifth annual MassChallenge global startup accelerator, receiving mentorship and training, office space and other benefits, all with no equity taken. The 128 startups were selected from a record pool of over 1,650 applicants from 50 countries and 40 states.

About MassChallenge

MassChallenge is the worlds largest startup accelerator and the first to support high-impact, early-stage entrepreneurs with no strings attached. Over $1 million in cash prizes is awarded to winning startups, with zero equity taken. Additional benefits for startups include world-class mentorship and training, free office space, access to funding, legal advice, media attention, and over $10 million of in-kind support. MassChallenge is a (501)(c)(3) nonprofit; all proceeds support the startup accelerator and MassChallenge does not take equity or place any restrictions on any of the participating startups.

MassChallenge top partners include: Jamestown, Fidelity Investments, Verizon, Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation, CASIS, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The Deshpande Foundation, The Boston Foundation, Thomson Reuters, Skolkovo Foundation, American Airlines, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bose, Henkel, iNNpulsa Colombia, Mass Tech Collaborative, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, Microsoft, Pfizer, Turnstone, WGBH Boston, and Zapopan.

Press Contact
Shannon Sullivan

shannon@masschallenge.org

(888) 782-7820 x 726